Missionary Mobile Device

The Stake President sent an email to the Bishop of our Ward stating that one of our missionaries is in a mission that is approved to have mini-iPads and that we need to have $381 in the Other:Missionary Mobile Device-(missionary's name) by February 27, 2015. Since this is in the Other category it is not tax deductable. Our Bishop has said to transfer funds we have in the Ward Missionary account to pay for it as the family can not by that time frame. First of all, you can't transfer the funds between Ward Missionary and Other and second, I don't think this is proper. Moving funds from a tax deductable account to a non tax deductable account seems to be circumventing the system and could be a possible IRS issue. So I told him that we need to get members to contribute to this Other account in order to cover the cost. I am getting push back from the Bishop and his councilors and wanted to see what the members in the Forum have to say on this issue.

You are correct in your understanding were funds can and cannot be transferred. Funds from the Ward Missionary category should not be transferred to the Other category. I am not sure, but I don't think MLS will permit this transfer. Budget funds can be used to cover a deficit in an Other category. But I don't think this is an intended use of budget funds since it is not a program or activity.

I recommend your bishop counsel with the stake president for solutions other than the one you proposed.

bgant wrote:The Stake President sent an email to the Bishop of our Ward stating that one of our missionaries is in a mission that is approved to have mini-iPads and that we need to have $381 in the Other:Missionary Mobile Device-(missionary's name) by February 27, 2015. Since this is in the Other category it is not tax deductable. Our Bishop has said to transfer funds we have in the Ward Missionary account to pay for it as the family can not by that time frame. First of all, you can't transfer the funds between Ward Missionary and Other and second, I don't think this is proper. Moving funds from a tax deductable account to a non tax deductable account seems to be circumventing the system and could be a possible IRS issue. So I told him that we need to get members to contribute to this Other account in order to cover the cost. I am getting push back from the Bishop and his councilors and wanted to see what the members in the Forum have to say on this issue.

The Other account is used here for a reason. If it didn't matter then they would just use the Ward Missionary account. Since the missionary gets to keep the iPad after their mission this isn't a tax deductible expense and can't be paid using a tax deductible account.

Getting donations from other members specifically for this is probably the cleanest way to handle it if the missionary and family can't. But you may want to contact the missionary department for more specific guidance. That would probably be a source that would also carry more weight with your bishopric than just other forum members.

jdlessley wrote:I recommend your bishop counsel with the stake president for solutions other than the one you he proposed.

For what it's worth, I agree that transferring Ward Mission funds is not acceptable, but I'd second the proposal to go back to the Stake President or talk to the Missionary Department.

A couple of other possibilities: Just let the Other account be negative for awhile. If other areas of "Other" are positive, it may not be an issue in the short term. Secondly, I thought I had heard where the church has loaner iPads for missionaries that couldn't afford them. If the family can't afford it and the bishop doesn't want to go to the ward members, that may be the solution.

We had a missionary in our ward whose family contributed the $381 as required and we coded it to the OTHER:Missionary Mobile: Missionary Name account. When CHQ drew the funds out, they took it from OTHER:Missionary Mobile. So now one of those accounts shows a negative balance and the other a positive. It won't let me transfer the expense to the account with his name on it. Any ideas how to fix this?

bballrob wrote:We had a missionary in our ward whose family contributed the $381 as required and we coded it to the OTHER:Missionary Mobile: Missionary Name account. When CHQ drew the funds out, they took it from OTHER:Missionary Mobile. So now one of those accounts shows a negative balance and the other a positive. It won't let me transfer the expense to the account with his name on it. Any ideas how to fix this?

I'd try writing a check from the positive account and then deposit it in the negative account.

bballrob wrote:We had a missionary in our ward whose family contributed the $381 as required and we coded it to the OTHER:Missionary Mobile: Missionary Name account. When CHQ drew the funds out, they took it from OTHER:Missionary Mobile. So now one of those accounts shows a negative balance and the other a positive. It won't let me transfer the expense to the account with his name on it. Any ideas how to fix this?

Any possibility of reclassifying the expense like you can with lds store orders?

The the check-writing idea doesn't work, I'd call Local Unit Support.